The 1997–98 Division 1 was the 60th season of Division 1, the top French professional league for

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

clubs, since its establishment in 1932. The season began on 2 August 1997, and concluded on 9 May 1998. This season saw a change in the league format, with the number of teams reduced to 18 from 20, shortening the season from 38 to 34 rounds. As a result, four clubs which had been relegated at the end of the previous season were replaced by only two,

Châteauroux Châteauroux (; ; oc, Chasteurós) is the capital city of the French department of Indre, central France and the second-largest town in the province of Berry, after Bourges. Its residents are called ''Castelroussins'' () in French. Climate Ch ...

and

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Par ...

, who entered as winners and runners up of the 1996–97 French Division 2. Defending champions of the 1996–97 season were

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

Lens A lens is a transmissive optical device which focuses or disperses a light beam by means of refraction. A simple lens consists of a single piece of transparent material, while a compound lens consists of several simple lenses (''elements''), ...

won the championship for the first time in their 92-year history, becoming the 26th club to become

French football champions The French football champions are the winners of the highest league of football in France, Ligue 1. Since the National Council of the French Football Federation voted in support of professionalism in French football in 1930, the professional foot ...

. Lens won their league title with 68 points, edging out second-placed

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

on goal difference, for whom this was their best result in history.

Teams

Stadia and personnel

Final table

Promoted from

Ligue 2 Ligue 2 (, League 2), also known as Ligue 2 BKT due to sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by Balkrishna Industries, is a French professional football league. The league serves as the second division of French football and is one of two divisions ...

, who will play in Division 1 season 1998/1999 *

AS Nancy Association Sportive Nancy Lorraine (), commonly known as AS Nancy Lorraine, or simply Nancy, is a French association football club founded in 1967 in Nancy, Grand Est and located in Tomblaine, in the inner suburbs of Nancy. The club currently ...

: champion of

FC Lorient Football Club Lorient Bretagne Sud (; commonly referred to FC Lorient or simply Lorient) is a French association football club based in Lorient, Brittany. The club was founded in 1926 and currently competes in Ligue 1, the top flight of French ...

: runners-up *

FC Sochaux-Montbéliard Football Club Sochaux-Montbéliard (; commonly referred to as FCSM or simply Sochaux) is a French association football club based in the city of Montbéliard. The club was founded in 1928 and currently plays in Ligue 2, the second tier of Frenc ...

Teams

Stadia and personnel

Final table

Results

Top goalscorers

References

External links

See also